In Bengal area where communal riots broke out, BJP officials claim a surge in membership

Security forces bring calm to Basirhat after a Facebook post
outraged some Muslims on Sunday. The violence comes amidst a state of
political flux in the region.

The deployment of central security forces in riot-hit
Baduria town and several other police station areas in Basirhat
sub-division of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district late on Tuesday
night managed to contain the communal riots that had erupted there on Sunday.
However,
large areas covering about half-a-dozen police stations were still
tense on Wednesday, leading to the imposition of prohibitory orders
against the assembly of more than five persons in the area.
The
violence broke out on Sunday after a Class 12 student in Baduria
allegedly posted an image on Facebook that some Muslims found
objectionable. The police subsequently arrested him. On Sunday night,
hundreds of angry Muslims took to the streets of Baduria and demanded
that the boy “be handed over to them or hanged”. Some agitators attacked
houses and ransacked shops. The rioting lasted through Monday and
Tuesday, with normal life totally crippled in the town and adjoining
police station areas. In some places, roads were dug up, and logs rolled
out to obstruct the passage of vehicles.
On Tuesday, after state
police forces and the Rapid Action Force lathi-charged and fired tear
gas shells at people blockading the road to Baduria, violence broke out
again, in which several police vehicles and security vans were burnt.
Wednesday
was relatively calm with no major outbreak of clashes in the area, but
as dusk descended, there were fears among members of both Hindu and
Muslim communities about the possibility of renewed violence.(Photo credit: Subrata Nagchoudhury).

‘Inadequate security’

Members
of both communities had several complaints about the inadequacy of
police and central security forces. In violence-affected areas of
Baduria, both Hindus and Muslims were seen guarding their own
localities.
At Magurkhali village near Rudrapur, where the youth
who allegedly made the Facebook post lived, bands of youths had
assembled near Sonali Sangha club on Wednesday. Members of the club said
that Border Security Force jawans reached Magurkhali village at about 8
pm on Tuesday and stationed themselves near the local mosque. The
presence of the security personnel helped calm things down, they said.

BSF watch

RPS
Jaswal, the Deputy Inspector General of the Border Security Force’s
South Bengal Frontier, said four companies of the force, totalling about
400 soldiers, continued to keep vigil in Basirhat sub-division. He
added that there had been no major outbreak of violence in the area on
Wednesday.
Basirhat sub-division is near the border with
Bangladesh with some of its towns such as Baduria barely eight to 10 km
from the border.
Jaswal said that the BSF personnel were
particularly focused on the borders to ensure that there was no
cross-border entry of “unwanted elements” during the disturbances.
Jaswal
added that security forces were carrying out marches in affected areas,
but it was the state police that was largely looking after law and
order issues. He said that the state government had not made any request
for additional troops for deployment in Basirhat so far.

Political churn

The outbreak of communal violence in Baduria comes close on the heels of a realignment of political forces in the region.
Basirhat
sub-division is home to both Hindus and Muslims. Its rural interiors
have an overwhelming land-holding Muslim majority while urban and
semi-urban pockets have a greater concentration of Hindus who largely
run most of the shops and small businesses. The proximity to the
international border possibly makes the politics here communally
sensitive.
The core of the latest communal flare up is Rudrapur –
part of Baduria Assembly constituency, and close to Bangladesh. The area
has recently seen the Bharatiya Janata Party becoming quite active.
Rudrapur’s sitting MLA is the Congress’s Abdur Rahim. He was supported
by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) during the 2016 elections.
However, with the fortunes of both the Congress and the CPI(M) on the
decline in the state, and with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress
unable to make a dent here in the 2016 Assembly elections, which the
party otherwise swept, Baduria is up for grabs.
The BJP seems to
have stepped into this political vacuum. A brand new BJP office was
opened in the heart of Rudrapur just two months ago. Neither the
Trinamool Congress, Congress nor the CPI(M) have offices in Rudrapur
yet.The new BJP office in Rudrapur. (Photo credit: Subrata Nagchoudhury).“We
had a steady rush of panicked Hindus coming to us for the past two
days, each appealing for a safe shelter,” said Ram Das Thakur a BJP
official in Rudrapur. “Many of them said that they would rather unite
under one umbrella than get divided into various political shades. Our
membership is growing rapidly.”
Ram Prasad Biswas, the BJP
organisational secretary of Basirhat region, said that the ruling
Trinamool Congress was clearly worried at the inroads his party was
making in the region.
Biswas said: “That the BJP has become a
headache for the Trinamool Congress here was evident when the Baduria
municipality chairman, Tushar Singh, while addressing Muslims on Monday
said: ‘We will not do anything here that gives the BJP some oxygen.’ It
is obvious that such words are to appease the minorities.”
In the past, the BJP has repeatedly accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of “pandering to Muslims”.
Another
BJP official from Rudrapur pointed out that the BJP was trying to woo
Muslims in several municipal wards of Rudrapur. For instance, in ward
one, a large number of Muslims had shown an interest in joining the
party. “But after the flare up, we are not sure of their position,” said
the BJP leader.(Photo credit: Subrata Nagchoudhury).In
the 2011 Assembly elections, the BJP won the Muslim-majority seat of
Basirhat. A vote analysis showed how the BJP managed this win. It showed
that in the rural belt, the Muslim vote got split between the CPI(M)
and the Congress, and in urban pockets of Basirhat the BJP consolidated
the Hindu votes. However, the Trinamool Congress picked up the seat in
2016.
Mohammed Nuruzzaman, a former Trinamool Congress MLA of
Deganga, adjoining Baduria, said that the BJP was attempting to gain a
foothold in the region.
“The RSS and Sangh Parivar are trying to
increase and strengthen their networks here,” said Nuruzzaman. “Places
like Berachampa, Basirhat, Taki, Bongaon and Baduria have Hindu refugee
settlements from Bangladesh. The BJP and Sangh Parivar are trying to
mobilise various Bengali caste and communities like Matuas, Namo Shudras
and other sects.”
Residents say that Hindus and Muslims have
lived here in harmony for years. In Maleyapur, on the Taki-Baduria Road,
Arizul Islam and Abdul Nazir spoke about their Hindu neighbours. “We
do not even mind sharing food on a same plate,” said Islam. “The RAF
[Rapid Action Force] came to beat us and create bad blood among us.”
Another
resident of the area said that after the initial protests against the
Facebook post, the situation were cooling down as the police promptly
arrested the youth behind it. “But suddenly from Monday, we could see
Muslim outsiders moving in large numbers to the areas and trying to
foment trouble,” this person said.